Warren Oates

Two-Lane Blacktop

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The Driver, The Girl and The Mechanic in the car

Pared right back, Two-Lane Blacktop is the petrolhead movie for those who like a lean burn. The actors are in the main non-actors, the dialogue is functional to the point of clinical austerity, there are no character names, just categorical slots for The Driver (James Taylor), The Mechanic (Dennis Wilson), The Girl (Laurie Bird) and GTO (Warren Oates), so named because he drives a yellow 1970 Pontiac GTO. Our guys, Driver and Mechanic, drive a 1955 Chevrolet 150, stripped back to the essentials to make it go faster, supercharged and painted in matt primer grey. As they drive across America, they challenge hotrodders in every small town they come across to race them, … Read more

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

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A wounded Bennie

It’s one of the great movie titles, so it may be no surprise to learn that Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia‘s title came first. Co-writer Frank Kowalski came up with the Bring Me the Head bit, and co-writer/director Sam Peckinpah took it from there, helping flesh out a story that would both justify it and do it justice. It is a deliberately shonky quest movie, set up in its opening scenes of a Mexican patriarch, his henchmen and family interrogating the man’s clearly pregnant teenage daughter as to who is the father of the child. She says nothing, even as the interrogation turns into torture. Eventually, at the sound of a … Read more